Breathe
by SailorJen
Summary: Rangiku finds Gin near death after Aizen's attack.  Will he survive?  Spoilers thru #417 of the manga.


Rangiku awoke and slowly crawled towards the edge of the building. Breathing in and out heavily, she tried to remember what had happened before she lost consciousness. _This feeling…Hakufuku. He didn't mean to hurt me after all. Why couldn't I see that before now? He only wanted to keep me away from Aizen…otherwise he could have killed me with ease. I've no energy left to fight and he knew that._

As she shook off the effects of the kudo spell Gin had used on her, she realized that he'd also grazed her skin with his zanpakuto in order to make it look like she was dead. Her eyes began to focus and she began to feel the reiatsu around her once again, only to sense that Gin's was diminishing.

"GIN!"

Rangiku finally made it back to where she'd first run into Gin and Aizen, only to witness Aizen stab him through with his zanpakuto. Rangiku stood on the roof, frozen in fear as she watched them. Gin fell, as if lifeless, unto a slab of stone. There he remained, unmoving, as Aizen turned towards the children. She flew off the roof of the building towards him, but as she neared, she felt his reiatsu all but disappear and saw his wounds. His arm torn off of him, his body slashed and run through by Aizen. He was covered with blood which was still gushing out of him.

Time seemed to halt. When she reached him, she hovered over him, looking for any sign of life left in him through her tear-filled eyes. She heard a loud, heart-breaking cry which drowned out the sound of everything else around her and then realized it was herself screaming.

She touched his face and his chest, looking for any response. There was a faint movement, as if he might have inhaled, but she wasn't sure.

It couldn't end like this. She couldn't lose him now after she finally realized that he hadn't betrayed her after all. Somehow, she had to find a way to save him, just as he had once saved her, all those years ago.

Rangiku had all but forgotten that they were not alone when she heard Ichigo join them and confront Aizen. She was thankful, for it became obvious that Aizen had turned around and was about to kill her. Now, she kept an eye on him. If there was any chance that Gin was still alive, she wasn't about to give Aizen a opportunity to change that. She hovered over Gin as Ichigo and Aizen spoke to one another, barely registering what either said.

When she glanced back at Gin, she noticed his eyes open. He was staring at Ichigo. Rangiku peered over her shoulder at Ichigo just as he grabbed Aizen and jumped, taking them high into the air and far away from the others.

"Gin!" she cried, noticing his eyes close shut again. "Gin, stay with me," she pleaded, wrapping her arm around his neck and lifting his head up towards her. "Gin, can you hear me?"

When his eyes slit open, she knew that he was still alive. He opened his mouth but only managed to cough up some blood. There was no way he could speak to her even if he tried, she realized.

Turning to the children, she waved them over. "Come, we have to get out of here. Kanonji, I need you to help me with Gin…I don't have any strength left," she explained. It was the truth. She wasn't even sure if she could walk without help herself but knew that she had to open a gate and take them far from here and hopefully someplace where they could get help from a healer. If she didn't, he'd never survive. Even her own recovery was questionable at this point.

The children gathered together their injured friends and Don Kanonji lifted Gin up, who didn't appear to be conscious anymore. They fled the scene and Rangiku managed to open a gate, but that was all that she remembered.

Rangiku woke with a start and sat up in the bed, sweating and shaking from the nightmare. Her breaths were labored as she slowly reminded herself that it wasn't real-not anymore. Was she to be haunted by this memory forever? It was easily the worst moment of her life. She couldn't imagine living the rest of her life without him and yet she was forced to relive that event over and over again. The only consolation she had was that it was over.

She felt a hand on her back. "Did you have another dream?"

"Yes," she sighed, looking down at Gin.

He sat up, still groggy from sleep. It was still the middle of the night. "Do you want to talk about it?" he offered, yawning.

"No," she smiled, shaking her head. "Just lie down."

He complied without a word of objection and, grasping her tightly, pulled her down with him. Rangiku shrieked as she went down, landing on top of him. He kept her firmly anchored against him and brought his freehand up to brush the hair out of her eyes.

It had only been a few months but already his motor abilities in his right arm were nearly back to normal. He was still building his strength back up but Captain Unohana was optimistic that he'd make a full recovery. He was already back to using his zanpakuto in practice.

Now that the bandages were all off, she felt fine acting normal around him again. He'd been rather pissed off when she refused to spend the night with him out of fear that she'd elbow him in the ribs in her sleep, which took some time to heal from being slashed apart. Of course, it had taken all of her will power and bottle upon bottle of sake to get her through the nights alone until he'd recovered.

Gin smiled and kissed her briefly. "I wish there was something I could do to keep you from dreaming about that."

"It's enough for me to know that you're fine," she said, lying her head on his good shoulder.

"What bothers me is how many bad things have happened to you over the years that I wasn't able to prevent," he said, in far too grave a tone for her liking.

"You can't stop bad things from happening to people, Gin," she reminded him, letting her fingers trail over his skin as the moonlight reflected off of him.

Gin only sighed. She knew that he didn't want to go into detail, again, about how he had hoped to right the wrongs that had been dealt to her. "How many times do I have to remind you that it isn't your duty to look after me in the first place?"

"Yes, it is," he objected, sitting up again.

_What the hell? It's too late to be arguing about this again._

"No, it isn't."

"It has been for years," he insisted. "Ever since ya first moved in with me back in the Rukongai."

"I'm not your responsibility, Gin. I'm capable of looking after myself," she said, reluctantly sitting back up and turning to face him.

"I know you're able to look after yourself but that doesn't mean you should have to," he said, his eyes still squinting at her. "It's always been me and you and it's going to continue to be that way."

Desperate, Rangiku let the sheet fall away, exposing her bare breasts, and began to pout.

Gin's smile broadened. "Ya know that doesn't work on me after all these years."

Rangiku began to run her hands up and down her body, blinking her eyes seductively.

To her dismay, he actually began to laugh and laid back down on the bed, watching her intently. "Quit trying to seduce me, you little minx," he said playfully and reached over to squeeze her knee, where she was ticklish.

Rangiku fell over in a fit of laughter and began to swat at his hand.

"You're impossible to argue with," she frowned, trying to look upset.

"That wasn't an argument, that was you trying to turn me on and make me forget about arguing…which would have probably worked better had we not made love twice before going to bed and once in your office earlier in the afternoon," he reminded her.

"I'll remember that for next time," she vowed, climbing on top of him and straddling him. If he thought she was giving up that easily, he had another thing coming.

"I'm allowed to worry about what happens to you just as you're allowed to worry about what happens to me," he continued, exhaling roughly as she ground her hips into his.

"Not to the extent that you think you need to fix everything in my life," she argued, leaning forward and resting her arms on his chest.

"Fine…perhaps that's taking it a bit far but I only do it because I'm in love with you," he explained.

Rangiku's breath caught.

In all the years they'd been together, he'd never actually said those words before. She stared at him, unable to speak.

Before she could recover from his admission, he turned over, flipping her unto her back, one hand on either side of her as he looked down at her. His silver hair hung down into his eyes as he stared down at her, his eyes opening as the smile faded from his face. "I should have told you long ago…at least before I left you. I almost lost my chance."

"I've always known," she assured him.

"That isn't the same," he countered. "I was always afraid that if I told you how I felt and something happened to me, which I thought likely as I learned more and more of Aizen's plan, that you'd suffer more knowing how I felt for you. Indeed, I thought that maybe you wouldn't miss me as much if you thought I didn't love you after I went away."

"That wasn't true," she told him.

"I know," he said, "I'm sorry."

Rangiku wrapped her arms around his neck and pulled him down to her. "I want you to quit apologizing for everything you failed to do and just love me."

"I will if you admit that it's my right to look after you."

"Only if you admit that you can't withstand my efforts to seduce you after all," she stipulated.

"Nope," he said, running his hand over her hip and down her thigh, "I can't."

"Look after me all you want," she moaned as he cupped her breast, "but quit apologizing every time I have that dream."

"Guess I'll just have to replace that memory with some new ones," he suggested, bringing his lips to hers. After that, the argument was as good as finished, for he had her breathing so heavily, she couldn't speak anymore if she wanted to.


End file.
